


Unique Like Snowflakes

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Remus Lupin Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29176113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Remus has caught feelings for a certain bushy-haired Gryffindor, but can he and Hermione navigate their grief - and their guilt - in a healthy way?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 20
Collections: 30 Days of Winter Writing, Hermione's Haven Bingo 2021





	Unique Like Snowflakes

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from but I LOVED writing it and I'm so excited to share it with you!
> 
> Thank you to lostinthought for being my alpha!
> 
> Prompts used-
> 
> Keep Calm and Write Something's 30 Days of Winter Writing: "We're all like snowflakes. Unique and one of a kind."
> 
> Hermione's Haven Bingo 2021: Found Family

Remus watched the way that Hermione's hair fanned out across the pillow, his pillow. She was no longer the young girl that he once taught, she was now a young woman that he admired. What had happened last night was a mistake, there was no denying that, but that wasn't to say that he regretted any of it. He sat on the edge of the bed beside her, his fingers spread out over her back. Her skin felt like silk beneath his touch. He let his eyes soak in every inch of her exposed body and let himself enjoy these moments of peace. He knew that it wouldn't be long until Teddy woke up and that would be the end of their quiet time together.

Remus had no idea whether they would get another chance to spend time alone again and even though Hermione was sound asleep he wanted to make the most of every single second that he had with her. Teddy tended to take all of Remus' time - which made sense considering that he was a toddler, but the three of them also lived with Harry. Hermione had made it clear that Harry couldn't know that the pair of them had feelings for each other. She had tried to make Remus understand how Harry knowing about their relationship - if you could even call it that - would complicate things, though Remus wasn't entirely sure what things it would complicate.

Surely having a relationship with Hermione wasn't any more complicated than having a relationship with Dora? She had managed to talk him round to that one and he was somewhat optimistic that he could talk Hermione around to being in a relationship with him eventually, but for now he was happy to continue whatever this currently was.

Remus leaned down and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck before he stood up and decided that he should check on his son after all. Teddy was pretty good at sleeping through the night now so they hadn't been disturbed last night. If Teddy had woken then he supposed that Harry must have seen to him, but Remus decided as he made his way into the little boy's room that that was unlikely.

Teddy was still asleep when Remus stood over his cot. He reached down to touch his son's cheek and stroked his hair softly, watching as it changed colour beneath his touch. He was so like his mother.

Remus left out a soft sigh as his thoughts flickered to Dora. She was and would forever be the love of his life. He had slowly come to terms with his feelings for Hermione, and while he could feel himself falling  _ hard _ for the girl with the wild hair, he had had to do some work to stop himself from feeling so guilty about being open to having a relationship with someone else.

Dora had been his second chance, so he knew that she would have wanted him to allow himself to be open to a relationship with another woman - and she would probably have been over the moon to know that he was safe in the heart of someone that she had known. All Dora had ever wanted was to make sure that Remus was happy, and then when Teddy had been conceived, she had worked tirelessly to help build a world where he would be safe. She had been taken from them far too soon, and while Remus had grieved for her and the life for their child that she had wanted so badly, he couldn't deprive himself of all happiness. Dora wouldn't want that.

It was all speculation, of course, because there was no real way of knowing what Dora would actually want, but she could rest easy in the knowledge that Hermione wasn't trying to replace her. She had helped him to look after Teddy, especially at first when Remus had been drowning in his grief. He knew now how unfair his behaviour had been, they had all been grieving, but Remus had acted as if only his grief had mattered, and that was why he had left the care of Teddy up to two teenagers. Dora certainly wouldn't have been happy about that, and he could hear her now chastising him for it as he looked down at their son.

Hermione wasn't Dora, she wasn't Teddy's mother, but Remus knew that she loved the little boy, that she cared for him dearly, and that was as much as he could ever wish for.

"Sickle for your thoughts?" Hermione's soft voice carried from where she was now stood in the doorway.

Remus turned on his heel to face her, a smile flickering across his lips as he took in the way that her hair cascaded around her shoulders and he was all too aware that she wasn't wearing anything underneath her robe. He said nothing about that though and tried to act as normal as he possibly could. She didn't want Harry knowing, he reminded himself, and he had to respect her wishes much in the same way that she had respected his boundaries when he hadn’t been ready for their relationship to be anything more than him stealing a kiss every now and then.

He was ready now, but he understood that she wasn’t. And he understood why she was hesitant about Harry finding out - the younger man was fragile and he saw Remus as a father figure, something that Harry hadn’t had until he had attended school. Remus didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise that, but he also knew that once they had both explained to Harry that neither of them had planned this, then he would understand. Harry would want them to be happy; he understood that nothing was more important than those he loved being happy.

“I was just thinking about everything.” Remus knew that he was being vague, but he couldn’t at all help it. “Teddy, Dora, you…” He tried to explain but knew that there was no way that he could do that without telling that he loved her.

“Ah..” Hermione pulled her lip through her bottom teeth and her eyes went to the floor for a moment before she met his gaze again. “Last night… I hope it’s not about last night…” She said slowly and Remus felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach. Of course, she regretted sleeping with him. She was coming to her senses now and he had to make peace with the fact that she didn’t want to be with a broken old man like him.

“Yeah, best to forget about it.” Remus muttered as he turned back to Teddy, lifting the child who was now waking up out of his cot and into his arms. At times like this he was glad that he had his son that he could hide behind, it was far easier to do that than to face his own feelings which were starting to drown him.

“Remus, that’s not what I’m saying.” She said quietly and Remus did his best to ignore the hand that was on his shoulder as he cradled his son close.

“I’ve gotta get Teddy some breakfast,” was all he said as he walked past her out of the room and down to the kitchen. He was relieved to find that Hermione didn’t follow him, though he realised that she was probably putting on clothes and she would come down to find him later, though he hoped that she wouldn’t attempt to continue the conversation. He had let himself get his hopes up high enough as it was only for them to be dashed in one sweep.

Remus managed to push all thoughts of Hermione from his mind as he fell into the routine of the day. He and Teddy ate breakfast with Harry who couldn't stay long but at least acted as a buffer when Hermione eventually appeared dressed and ready for work. She didn't say much, just exchanged pleasantries with the two adults and made a fuss of Teddy before both she and Harry left for work, leaving Remus alone with Teddy for the day.

**

Remus felt as if the moon was taunting him as it's light peeked in through the curtains and landed on the bed where Hermione had been last night. He let out a sigh before he rolled over to face the other way so that he wouldn't have to look at the empty space. He had managed not to think about her all day while he had been busy but now that Teddy was in bed, he had nothing but time.

If he didn't have to keep an ear out for Teddy waking up in the middle of the night then he would have been tempted to take a sleeping draught, but as it was he couldn't. He had Hermione and Harry to rely on, sure, but that didn't mean that he wasn't still a struggling single parent.

He closed his eyes tightly as he tried to get his brain to shut up, though he knew that it wasn't as simple as that, and when he heard his bedroom door creak open, he knew that he didn't even have time to straighten his thoughts out so that they would even make sense. He didn't need to look up to know who was there, he could smell her strawberry shampoo from here. He didn't want to acknowledge her tonight though and he was hoping that if he ignored her for long enough, she would just leave again.

This, he realised, was misguided as he felt the bed shift slightly as she sat down next to him. He felt her hand on his shoulder and he did his best to bite back a sigh, not wanting to give her any sort of acknowledgement. She wanted to pretend that last night didn't happen, after all. Though he didn't wonder why she was here if she didn't feel the same way that he did about her. She was the one that was pursuing him, after all, not the other way around.

"Remus?" Her voice was soft and he could feel her breath on his neck and he realised that she was practically lying down on the bed with him now. His heart was pounding in his chest now and he knew that he couldn't really ignore her for much longer. "Can we talk about what happened?"

"What happened?" Remus repeated, deciding to play dumb so that he could avoid having his heart crushed even more, though he knew that he was just simply being petty at this point, a trait that he had inherited from Sirius.

"Don't be like that." Hermione let out a sigh but Remus was glad that she had moved away to give him some space. "I didn't mean to upset you this morning."

Remus squeezed his eyes closed tightly before he sat up so he could face her. "No, you just want to forget that last night ever happened."

"I never said that!" Hermione's eyes shot wide as he met his gaze. "I never said that I wanted to forget any of this." She said quietly and he watched as she went to take his hand into hers. "You… you caught me by surprise this morning when you put me in the same category as Tonks. I wasn't expecting that, and I wasn't expecting… I wasn't expecting any of this."

Remus let her take his hand and gave her hand a squeeze in return. He had jumped to conclusions and that wasn't her fault, it was his own and he was starting to realise that. "I'm sorry." He said quietly. "I didn't mean to...push anything on you."

"You didn't." She said quickly as she turned to face him properly, crossing her legs underneath her as he tried to fight all of his feelings of guilt. There was no time for self-pity when he had to make her aware that he wasn't trying to get her to replace his wife. While Remus knew that he loved Hermione, he cared for her in a much different way than he had Tonks. Even though she hadn't agreed to being in a relationship with him - and he was so much of a school girl that he believed one night of sex meant that they were dating - he still believed that Hermione was his third chance, Sirius being his first.

Remus watched Hermione for a moment before reaching up to cup her cheek in his palm. "You've always been special to me Hermione, the ways in which you're special have just changed over the years. I didn't mean to imply that I see you replacing Dora, because no-one could do that. All I meant was that I'm glad to have you in my life, to have you by my side in whatever capacity."

Hermione leaned into his touch, her brown eyes fixing on his, captivating him effortlessly. "Last night was one of the best nights of my life. I keep replaying everything that happened over and over in my head, and the more I relive it, the more I realise that it's how I want to spend every night, in your arms."

Remus didn't care that he was a man in his forties, he felt like a teenager again as she said those words and he could definitely feel his cheeks turning pink as he studied her face, trying to figure out whether he was serious or not. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips as a smile spread across his face. He certainly wasn't going to waste any opportunity to be intimate with her.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself." He said softly, though he hoped that she more than enjoyed herself, that she was even maybe considering turning whatever they had into something more serious. For now he just had to make her see that he was serious about her, that there was no-one else for him out there. He didn't need anyone else when he had his found family in Grimmauld Place.

Hermione lay her hand over his and Remus found himself feeling pretty foolish that he ever considered that he might have been subconsciously trying to replace Dora with her. He could see now that it just didn’t make sense, no matter how much he tried to look at it. Her eyes were captivating, but in a completely different way than Dora’s were, not that he wanted to compare the two. He wanted to shake his head, to physically shake the thoughts out of his head, but he knew that he couldn’t do that without shaking her hand off of skin and he definitely didn’t want to discourage her from being as close to him as she wanted - as he wanted.

“What’s going through that head of yours?” Hermione asked softly, her thumb now running over his skin gently and he realised that he probably looked like a constipated meerkat as he stressed over all the ways in which he was already screwing this up, even though there wasn’t anything to screw up  _ yet _ .

He decided that the only way that any of this was going to be able to work was if he was completely honest with her, no matter how difficult that felt like it was to do. “I know I shouldn’t be thinking about her when I’m with you, but I am. My mind keeps running through the million ways that you two are different, and the one very special way that you’re the same - the way that you make me feel loved.”

“Remus.” Hermione began, her tone firm, almost chastising. “I wouldn’t ever ask you to forget about her even for one second. Tonks meant a lot to me as well, you know that. And I know you’re smart enough to know that every single person in your life is different to the next. I know you’re not looking to find Tonks in someone else.”

Remus managed a small smile, glad that Hermione was able to understand exactly where he was coming from. It put his mind at ease, and that was something that he couldn’t deny. “You’re right.” He said quietly. “I’m not looking to find her again, because I have you,” he paused for a moment before he realised just how presumptuous that was of him. “Or at least you I hope I have you at least in some capacity.”

Hermione let out a soft chuckle before she leaned in and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “You have me, Remus. You have me completely.”

Remus was silent as he let that sink in for a moment. He hadn’t expected her to be as forward as that about it, but he wasn’t going to complain about that any time soon. When he spoke again he made sure that his words were slow and calculated, and at the same time not at all pushing her into doing anything that she wasn’t at all comfortable with.

“I love you, Hermione.” He whispered, his fingers now twisting into her curls as he held her close. “And I know you’re not ready to go public with our relationship, and I guess now I know how Dora felt when I refused to all those years ago, but I’m willing to wait for you.”

Hermione kissed him again, her arms now wrapping around his neck as she moved onto him, her legs wrapping around his waist. “I love you too, Remus.” She whispered back. It was time to celebrate their uniqueness, the uniqueness of their relationship and the way that Hermione was completely different to Dora. He could only think of a quote that he had once heard: We are all like snowflakes. Unique and one of a kind.


End file.
